1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to computer memories and more specifically to a system and method for generating one or more linked lists in a computer memory architecture.
2. Related Art
Contemporary computer memories are often partitioned by linking data in those memories in chains, or lists, according to data types. Data of a particular data type stored in memory can be linked to other data of the same type regardless of where the data are physically stored in the memory. For example, where data from multiple processes are being stored, it may be desirable to link the data from each particular process together with all the other data of the same data type from the same process. In this manner, several chains of data are formed, and each chain is dedicated to a particular data type.
Such memory linkages can be applied to memories used to store packetized data. In conventional packet memories using linkages, the data are stored in memory cells. Typically, each memory cell contains space for the data packet as well as a pointer to the next cell containing a packet of the same type. Thus, the cell pointer is used to link together cells containing the same type of data.